“Feel like cooking?” Aiden held up the marshmallow bag.
“Give me that bag and I’ll make you eat every last one.” Lucas warned.
“As long as they’re roasted right I won’t complain.” He shrugged.
Lucas took the bag with a grin and got a skewer out. As he concentrated, Aiden looked around the camp for something to talk about. Nothing. He didn’t want to talk about school, and if he had to listen to a football story he wouldn’t want to try kissing Lucas.
“So… did you finish that book?” Aiden asked.
“What book?”
“The uh” He struggled to remember the name, “The one with the gods and the lightning, and the pen that was a sword-“
“Percy Jackson?” Lucas looked at him sideways, “I finished that book before I lent it to you.”
“More of them came out you know.”
Lucas sat up with a smoking marshmallow. “I do know. I’ve read them. Which was your favourite?”
“I only read the first two.”
Lucas frowned.
“Okay, fine, I only read the first one.”
“But they’re good” Lucas looked offended, “I’ll lend you my copies when we get back.”
“They’re for kids”
Lucas shoved the marshmallow into Aiden’s mouth. “They’re good.” He insisted.
“Okay.” Aiden said once he’d chewed through the goo, “So who was your favourite character?”
“Percy’s hard not to like.” Lucas said, “He’s capable, but a bit dense.”
“You relate to him so.”
Lucas shoved another marshmallow against his lips, half of it melted out down his chin. “Nobody believes me when I tell them you’re not quiet.”
“I am quiet.”
“At school” Lucas skewered another marshmallow, and his expression changed into something more serious. “Or when anyone else is around. Do you not like Hugh and Kal?”
“If I called either of them dense I’d get socked in the jaw.” Aiden pointed out, “I think I’m better off not talking to them. Besides, we have nothing in common.”
“You’d like them if you talked to them.”
Aiden let out a non-committed hum. This wasn’t safe territory. He had nothing nice to say about Lucas’s friends. He couldn’t even say ‘they seem nice’ because they didn’t. Most of the time Lucas didn’t either.
He scooted closer to Lucas and plucked a skewer out of the bag. After he’d roasted it and put it to Lucas’s lips he had to listen to complaining. “Just one.” Aiden promised.
“Why any?” Lucas grumbled, but ate the top layer anyway. He chewed it unhappily and swallowed it with a disgusted expression.
Aiden pat his leg. “Good job.”
They concentrated on roasting their respective marshmallows. Well, Aiden racked his brain to figure out what to do. They were just talking and making no progress in the direction he wanted. Sure, he was touching Lucas now. He’d left his hand on his knee, but Lucas didn’t seem to think anything of it. Where was the blushing from the pool earlier?
“I actually wanted to talk to you about what I said earlier.” Lucas put his skewer down. “About my teammates.”
Aiden followed suit and put down the skewer. He could guess a few things Lucas would want to talk about. Number one, they weren’t close and there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t run his mouth. “I’m not going to say anything to them. As we already pointed out, I don’t even talk to them.”
“I wasn’t worried about that at all.” Lucas said, “I just wanted to clarify; they’re my teammates and I love them. Earlier I was hungover and just wallowing, I didn’t mean that to imply that I wanted to leave them or anything.”
Aiden didn’t know why Lucas was telling him this. “Okay.”
“I just mean, that it’s kind of, complicated?” Lucas looked confused, “They irritate me. I love them, but sometimes they behave a bit … they go to far.”
“‘They’ go too far?” Aiden couldn’t stop himself.
“I’m included in the ‘they'” Lucas sighed, “And again, I’m sorry about the pond. But when we’re around each other that’s what we always do. I used to feel bad sometimes afterwards if we’d done or said something really bad, but now I feel bad before it even happens, while we’re doing it – and it really annoys me that it’s my friends behaving like that.”
Aiden listened to his rant and felt something stirring in his chest. It was familiar. It was achingly familiar. “It’s frustrating” he said, “But you can’t tell them to behave a certain way just to please you.”
“Right” Lucas’s expression flickered. “That’s exactly it”
Aiden didn’t feel like trying out new things anymore. “You can only control how you behave, it’s up to them how they want to act. Getting upset about it won’t do much.”
Lucas looked annoyed. “I know it’s not going to do anything about it. I’m upset because there’s nothing I can do. If I say anything to them they’ll just get thick with me.”
“Nobody likes being criticised, especially by a close friend.”
“If I keep quiet nothing is going to change, but if I say something they’ll hate me.” Lucas huffed, “I don’t know what to do.”
Aiden, when it happened to him, had gone with the first option. Because he hadn’t realised what was going on at first, and then when he had he didn’t think he had the right to impose his own opinions on Lucas. Lucas was having fun with his new friends, and they joked and played in a way that Aiden knew he couldn’t.
Lucas was watching him. “Any advice?”
“What makes you think I have any idea what to do?” Aiden asked.
“Because you were able to relate to what I was saying.” Lucas said, “You obviously went through something similar to….”
Aiden watched his expression change as Lucas realised why he could relate.
“I didn’t say anything” Aiden said quietly. And we stopped being friends. He knew he didn’t have to add that out loud. He turned his face away. Lucas’s gaze was too intense to maintain eye contact with.
Standing in the pathway with a rotten scowl was Hugh. Aiden tensed at the severity of his glare, and slowly took his hand from Lucas knee.
“Aiden…” Lucas’s voice was soft with a mixture of sadness and something else Aiden didn’t recognise. His hand followed Aiden’s to his lap.
Aiden shivered, feeling his breath on the side of his neck and his hand enveloping his own. If he could have spoken softly like that earlier, it would have been perfect. But not now.
“I’m –” Lucas began.
“Hey.” Hugh said loudly.
Lucas flinched, and jerked his head around to the path.
“What are you two lovebirds doing?” Hugh joked. His voice was tense, and he kicked a stone ahead of him as he approached. It flew past Aiden’s shin, narrowly missing.
Aiden didn’t take it as a joke.
Lucas’s tight grip said that he didn’t either.
“Roasting marshmallows.” Lucas answered.
Hugh came into the circle of the camp fire, his gaze flicking over their joined hands. “Oh yeah?”
They stared off and the tension twisted Aiden’s stomach.
It was too much.
“I’d better be going.” Aiden said awkwardly. He had to tug his hand out of Lucas’s rigid grip as he stood.
“See you later.” Lucas said.
Hugh shot him a glare as he passed by him.
Once Aiden was out of sight he let out a long breath. Despite what Lucas had said that hadn’t been irritation – that was hostility. Aiden didn’t know why, but he felt like his presence had somehow made whatever was going on between the two of them worse.
Maybe he shouldn’t have left them alone together? What if they fought? But then again, it’s not like it was any of his business. They could fight if they wanted to.
*
Aiden woke up with a sudden start and a pounding heart. In the dream he’d fallen off the bed, in reality he was already sleeping on the ground. He brought his panted breaths back to normal.
He rolled over and rubbed the back of his neck.
It was another one of those dream.
“You know you’re lucky we’re not sharing with anyone else.” Connor said.
Aiden jumped. “What?”
“I’m just saying, not to embarrass you or anything” Connor turned his head to Aiden, or at least Aiden thought he did – it was too dark to see anything. “But if we were with the others and you started moaning a certain someone’s name in your sleep…”
“You’re messing.” Aiden said flatly, but his cheeks heated into an inferno.
“It sounded like you were having fun.” Connor chuckled.
“Do you ever sleep, or just spend all your time eavesdropping?” Aiden covered his face. He couldn’t believe it. He’d had one of those dreams, and someone had been listening? If he’d been making all the sounds he’d been making in the dream… humiliating wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how he felt.
“No judgment here” Connor said, “I just didn’t realise you were interested.”
“I’m not.” Aiden bit his cheek. It had just been a dream, and the conversation earlier had changed his mind about Lucas. There was too much history between them for him to try experimenting.
“Sure.”
“I’m not.” Aiden insisted.
“Okay.”
“Connor, I’m going to-”
“I’m just messing with you.” Connor said with an amused tone, “You can’t help what you dream about.”
Aiden didn’t believe him. he rolled over and pulled his sleeping bag over his shoulders tightly. He pretended he didn’t hear Connor laugh and whisper ‘big baby’ at him.
*
The tension between Lucas and Hugh was nerve wrecking for everyone. At all times they kept a distance between themselves, and if they were forced to be together, like when we stopped for water or to eat, then it was silent.
Aiden heard it broken once.
Lucas asked Hugh to pass him his water bottle, and Hugh snapped back something about being allowed to touch it now.
Aiden stuck close to Connor and Evie for the hike, and when the stopped he put off going to check on the trio’s tent long enough that he decided there was no point anymore.
Mandy would get mad at him, but he just didn’t want to. They had everything they needed, and they were capable; they’d be fine.
He and Connor were sat around their small camp fire with Evie talking about school, what subjects they liked and what they didn’t – what actors did they fancy.
Connor made a point of asking Aiden about every male actor he could think of. Evie didn’t show it, but he was sure she’d picked up on something. Connor wasn’t exactly being subtle.
A branch in the forest snapped, and they all turned as Lucas stepped into their little clearing.
Aiden’s eyes widened. His hair was messy, with curls sticking up in odd directions, and his cheeks were flushed red.
“Hi.” Evie greeted.
Lucas blinked a few times before returning the greeting. He stood there without saying anything else, so Aiden scooted over on his log and patted the spot next to him.
Lucas silently sat down.
They resumed their conversation, each looking over Lucas in their own time. Aiden reached over to his bag and dug out the marshmallows. He put one on a skewer and handed it to Lucas. Without a word he roasted it, and without a word he made Aiden eat it.
“I’d better go back before it gets any darker” Evie said.
“I’ll walk you over.” Connor stood up too.
“Bye Aiden, bye Lucas.” She gave a wave and they left.
Aiden waited till they were out of sight. “Are you okay?”
Lucas let out a long sigh. “Yes. It’s nothing. Just a spat.”
Aiden didn’t think him being this quiet warranted the dismissal of ‘just a spat’.
“Could I stay here tonight?” Lucas asked, he looked at Aiden with a muddled expression. “I don’t want to go back.”
“Of course” Aiden answered.
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